When Fundi Technologies announced their foray into the world of Alternate Reality Gaming with Deus City, they promised something different. An immersive reality with economic, prestige, and karmic systems judging players’ decisions. Actually, they promised nothing of the sort — but they’ll probably deliver anyway. Now that the main site has relaunched (Jan. 15), we are finally able to explore the districts of Deus City in 2037. Expect numerous references to dytopian stories in this post-apocalyptic landscape.

Since ARGN’s last article on Deus City, players have received frequent communications from 30 years in the future as characters scrambled furiously for control over the mysterious Defense-Corp Incorporated. While Adam Brackin traveled North America following the trail of prophecy, Alex Wright and “Foo” gained access to the Time Communication interface, allowing players to register as “Temporal Agents”. Alex’s father became the first in-game fatality due to a plane crash, and the fate of Defense-Corp employee Phillip Moore is currently unknown, with our last interaction ending with gunfire.

Finally, in January, agents entered into direct contact with the future through an extensive interface including puzzles, forums, and private messages. Thanks to an open request for guest puzzles from the PMs, the “missions” presented to Agents are quite varied, although at times the questions might seem a trifle vague.

What may be the most interesting feature is the user interface. Deus City has four confirmed karmic colors and at least as many in-game factions, all trying to control the course of history. Credits, karma, and prestige may change due to anything from messaging characters to solving puzzles to exploring the website, and new characters are emerging from unexpected places including the existing player-base and Fundi Tech’s own staff, a possible homage to that other ARG City.

Currently, players are delving into the motivations of the two main factions in the game, Foo’s “Defense-Corp” and future-Adam’s “Brotherhood” while trying to assess the loyalties of characters both here in 2007 and in 2037. And it looks like a third faction might be emerging in the next few days…

Deus City spans multiple websites with the promise of much more content to come including at least three new Districts in Deus City and two more registereddomains in addition to extensive video and audio content.